All the World’s Mornings     by Pascal Quignard, Translated by James Kirkup Original title: Tous les matins du monde Original language: French Published by Graywolf Press Pub. Date: 1993 Format: Paperback, 96 pages Dimensions: (in inches): 0.34 x 8.50 x 5.45 ISBN: 1555972039 List Price: $9.00 Not available for ordering Published by Quartet Pub. Date: 1992 Pub. Place: UK Format: Paperback, 112 pages Not available for ordering Published by Quartet Pub. Date: 1992 Pub. Place: UK Format: Hardcover, 96 pages Not available for ordering

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A potent and enjoyable piece of writing, based on real characters, honourably translated by James Kirkup and recently made into a meditative and beautiful film of the same name. Like Sebastiano Vassalli’s The Chimera (reviewed in the Italian Babel Guide) this is story set in the past but much more than a ‘romance’ or entertainment.


In late seventeenth-century/early-eighteenth century France there was a great flowering of various courtly arts, including music and this book is a celebration of the creation of the divine sounds of Lully, Couperin and Rameau.


The basic theme of the book is the ‘passionate life’ of two men and a woman who grow to identifiy themselves absolutely with the difficulties and possibilities of an artform. Although full of charming period detail and an appreciation of the real values of artistic achievement there is too a cathartic recognition of the painful developments life can bring. The loss and betrayal of love, the natural cruelty of one to another set off the story of the long road to creative innovation.


In the end Guignard’s marvellous portrait of artists who after hard years of effort ‘dine with the Gods’ in the practice of their art will stay in the mind as much as the equally beautiful but softer-edged film version of his book.

‘He found a new way to hold the viola da gamba between his knees without allowing it to rest against his calf. He added a bass string to the instrument to lend it the possibility of deeper tones and to produce a more melancholy effect. He perfected the bowing technique by lightening the weight of his hand and exerting pressure only on the horsehair using just his index and middle fingers, something he brought off with astonishing virtuosity. One of his pupils, Côme le Blanc the Elder declared that he contrived to imitate all the inflexions of the human voice: from the sigh of a young lady to the sob of an old man, from the war cry of Henri de Navarre to the soft breathing of a child trying to draw something, from the distracted groan sometimes produced by sexual pleasure to the almost voiceless gravity, deprived of nearly all force and harmony, of a man lost in prayer.’ p4-5